Doctors refer negotiation impasse to mediation

Wednesday 22 November 2006

"Senior doctors refer negotiation impasse to mediation; fighting not to stop work"

"Senior doctors have referred the continued impasse in their protracted national collective agreement negotiations with district health boards to mediation," said Mr Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, today.

Mr Powell was commenting at the end of the 14th day of negotiations today. Negotiations commenced on 24-25 May. A 15th day scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled and mediation will be held on 5 December.

"The DHBs negotiating team is continuing to fail to face up to the need to provide employment conditions for senior doctors so that New Zealand can compete in a very tight international medical market. They are living in a state of denial. The longer this continues, the more they threaten medical workforce development in New Zealand."

"Senior doctors national representatives recently voted overwhelmingly to hold stopwork meetings should the impasse continue. However, we are determined to ensure that we exhaust all possible avenues before proceeding with them."

"Senior doctors are fighting not to stopwork while the DHBs representatives appear to be fighting to make sure they do. It's a funny world," concluded Mr Powell.

ENDS

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